Here, on St Andrew’s Day, from the pen of Sir Walter Scott, is the classic articulation of patriotism. There is no jingoism involved in this rejoicing in belonging to, and having pride in, our little nation – though the excoriation of those not thus moved by sentiment for country is perhaps somewhat over the top!
MY OWN, MY NATIVE LAND!
Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d
As home his footsteps he hath turn’d,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth, as wish can claim;
Despite these titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour’d, and unsung.
~
O Caledonia! stern and wild
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires! what mortal hand
Can e’er untie the filial band
That knits me to thy rugged strand?
Still, as I view each well-known scene,
Think what is now and what hath been,
Seems as, to me, of all bereft,
Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;
And thus I love them better still,
Even in extremity of ill.
(From The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Canto VI)
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